January 12, 2023 — Ongoing
PILES FROM BATTLEFIELDS
COLLECTION OF PILES HE TOUCHED
TO KISS ON A BATTLEFIELD
Surprise is competent of humor, or so I thought.
It could have been a day in March,
I received a $400 ruby ring.
The ruby was dyed to look darker,
or so I found out when I tried returning it hours later.
So I twirled it in my hands. My hand the size of stone. Looking through the red light.
Took your hand ran it down my freedom.
I am looking down at this
Watch me aerial breath, aerial sitting from above.
Watching you unfold into another room.
We have done this before,
I say.
This time it could be different—says R. barking up a hill.
Far from above
I can see there are red dogs running in different directions now.
In that moment we had a funny way of getting back together.
I tied my palms with tinsel every day and sat watching
GoogleEarth update each direction. Every year the resolution
growing wilder.
Then I would rub my palms, rub my palms,
rub them fast until enough heat produced.
Until we could be warm from inside.
Saying watch watch watch watch
watch watch watch watch.
watch watch watch watch watch w
watch watch watch a
watch
did you know that supposed fact? Um, like it's a supposed fact.
You probably heard in middle school and never Googled to see if its true.
That like sharks only stop moving when they die or they stop moving
they die.
Its something like that like black eyes black eyes black eyes
rounding some corner big great dog eye.
He doesn’t seem to be living until he bites. And the black eyes roll over
white white white white.
blue [outstretched and long]
blue \blue skies
different kinds of blue skies.
gray blue skies
pink blue skies
black blue sky
sound, sound of
you, me sound of
e
sound of if
uh,
like the phones
like the visitation, the preparation,
in a TV trailer voice
Are you ready for?
aerial
DOG MOUTH IS ALL BUT LYSOZYME AND IMMUNOGLOBINS AND
ANTIMICROBIAL PEPTIDES TEARING HOLES TO THE ENTRANCE
Over the last year I had this email correspondence with this 15-year-old kid
back in Ukraine. The mother asked me to do this, Im not sure why she asked me
I didn’t even know the kid well. But agreed. So we sent messages like blackbirds
shoot shooting through the air. How Wi-Fi signals go straight through you. Always touched
always held. Did you know? He would ask me questions about america and I would have to
answer yes no, only yes no like—yes
do you only eat fried food yes
are the building only stone no
do you sit on his lap in the Mercedes often no
do you fall in love in america often yes
walmart for the bikini yes
walmart for everything absolutely
on what aisle could you find porn magazines yes
on what aisle did you spill heart no
At some point I could tell he clearly wanted to kiss me,
So I would lean in real close to the black box shooting wifi signals in his direction
place my lips on the receiver and hold.
The wifi receiver as a prayer
*you will get out soon *you will get out soon *you will get out soon
‘In the effort to find a way through memory(Aristotle emphasizes)
a principle of association is helpful—
from milk to white,
from white to air,
from air to damp
after which you recollect autumn supposing
you is trying to recollect that season.’
Or supposing,
you are trying to recollect
a principle of freedom.
Then pass then rapidly.
from one step to the next.
From nipple to hard,
from hard to bedroom
from bedroom to,
a phone call I received from Ukraine earlier that day.
‘he went out for milk, she said
for bread,
for honey,
and now there are all but pieces, he is all but pieces
blown out on the road.’
I am attempting to recollect the last moment
before you walked through that door.
*Hand Hand
Breath Plywood
Plywood Passion
Passion Rubber
Rubber Laughter
Laughter Shut-door
Shut-door Shoulder
Shoulder Kiss
For R. truth was always layered.
In the four years I've known him we moved 4 times.
Each new room split hot plate from beneath us.
The tectonic plates scrambling apart,
preventing me from hearing your voice—is that why
I can't recall anything about you wanting.
It's full rain now coming in from all directions. It's always raining in the final
scene. The sky too cries for our small incisions.
R. used to tell me they could control the weather from above.
Satellite work. He said
Laser into the sky work.
Why would they do a thing like that. To inspire movement he would say and I
would be firmly gripping his hand not able to let go because for Mata, the 15 year old
I fashioned a love that was based on a principle of grappling work. Tie a good knot kinda work and Don't let go even if the wind is shaking the trees dry.
In the last apartment the staircase opened the door.
3 floors up.
aerial now,
red dogs now
multiplying
becoming more like dots
becoming slow like how from high above it all just
slows and slows
Such freedom from above.
I’ve never lived this high up. So I'm catching glimpses of my face
in black metallic reflections
Google earth’s resolution is 15 per meter now,
you have to reduce to the size of a pixel.
We can't walk away from this.
You can be seen from all angles.
War can be seen from none.
FROM ABOVE USE THE HOUSE TO CALIBRATE
THE CAMERA TO SEE THE SLIT THAT IS OPENING AND CLOSING ON
HIS FACE WHICH WE CALL KISS
in the last email I received from Mata he is reviewing war rations. I tell him I think that word is beautiful. Ration. Latin ratio“reason.”A prescribed amount at a prescribed time.
He tells me I don’t understand him. He says.
Menu 4 - HDR ration
24-hour ration
Combat ration
Combat ration for One
Combat ration for Five
Ray ration
950-g jar of honey
Individual food ration
Portion control
Cum 3 times a day kinda ration
Individual meal pack
Instant meal pack
It's like sex 5 times a week
Meal ready to eat
One person Pack
Salmon caviar
First strike bar
Enhanced packets
High altitude
Cold weather
Longlife food
Longlife food until you don’t need it anymore.
It's how you keep animals in line works for people too. He said.
I'm trying to tell him not to think like that. Think small room.
You know the kind. Think small living room. Communist block housing
kind. Think carpets on the walls. Lots of carpets on the floor too—how they all
do it. Think bookcases floor to ceiling. Think christmas. The tree is all
tinsel going vertically and it's heavy with soviet glass. Your grandmother loves
the one shaped like a supernova inside out. Think you are so little so small
and you are under the tree and your grandmother's hands are large. She is
candies oranges passing your lips all sugar all sugar all sweet.
the heat
is coming for a long-held kiss.
what happened to all these houses?
just a patch of red smeared
on white stone
don’ttake away my palm don’tleave me useless with these mechanical wires
that need to account for the drought, the white blazing, the white coming in.
wires stroking in all directions, on time sending messages, yet
hard to read when the air is pages thick,
need years deciphering.
black as silk crisscrossingacross the sky, gentle leather tight tar pulling
house to house they stretch the street with open mouths,
such a calm mouth-to-mouth, yet
nothing to say,
just long held in a kiss.
When trying to prove a point on the location of memory to you,
I forget the opening line to Ad Herennium.
The mother calls me to say how she can't remember to open the door.
Her voice thin enough to see through.
I say you have a bigger problem. She says she wishes to close all the doors
to this war. But the wind keeps blowing them open.
She tells me how she makes that walk.
4,320 steps equivalent to the walk her son did from home to
the Conservatory of Music where she would listen to him
recite Sonata No. 8 by Prokofiev. How some things just have to be enough.
She listened to Sonata No. 8 every day up until July 7, 2023
as he is no longer living and there could be no more hands hitting
white keys,
hitting strings,
hammering at his heart.
I call R. to tell him this is the most sex I've had in years. Different him
every night.
I am trying to prove a point on the location of freedom in my body.
He doesn’t seem to be bothered. I'm telling him I’m doing it for him not him.
Kissing every street corner,
every passing light
Mornings, Breakfast, Take Cares, Welcomes, Arrives, See You Soon,s
Goodnights, Farewells
my lips pressed to every doorway
15 years laying dormant volcano.
He says, Violence has to move the night.
And I'm screaming now telling him 15 years is too young to die without a kiss.
It's a different room now,
one we haven’t been in before. A big heavy chair sits on a heart
keeping us simple
and all that remains is the indulgence insistent, alive.
In this room remains a sense of freedom untamed. A long Idyll to the
sun of our rooms, to every sun in every room.
Here there is no stopping.
We Fall in the name of
the kiss,
the wound. We fall and trip in front of strangers spilling
bits of tinsel dusted in orange sugar. Bits of the remainder
of what we have.
So we continue, to work. Continue by making, and try making,
through making. Collecting everything. Acquiring weight.
Growing heavy. Carrying it all.
This is not a capture, but a band, a trampoline, a projection, a beam.
Good doG licks its wounds to prevent infection
something in their mouth says
heal sterile congeal.
And I find you doing the same licking away at me.
At each others tears or
sweat they have good day they roll in the snow.
Caution is best. Luck essential. Hope a question.
down the street I notice I woman standing in her
undershirt looking up at the rain.
Throwing a kiss to the sky.
Well, not every day can be a masterpiece.
This one sails out and out and out
and out and out and out out out out and out out
